Hyde Park’s Restoration Drama

List Price: $2.7 millionSale Price: $2.35 millionThe Property: Last spring, the couple who were in the midst of restoring this Hyde Park house moved into it after they unexpectedly sold their own home two blocks away…

By Dennis Rodkin

Published May 23, 2011

List Price: $2.7 millionSale Price: $2.35 millionThe Property: Last spring, the couple who were in the midst of restoring this Hyde Park house moved into it after they unexpectedly sold their own home two blocks away.

With their very extensive renovation now complete, Daniel and Stephanie Aucunas sold the five-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot home on a street of urban mansions on April 28th. According to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, the buyers are Brett and Dontrey Hart. Last November, Brett Hart left a job as Sara Lee’s general counsel in November to take the same post at United Continental Holdings, the newly merged airline.

The house was built in 1906. The Aucunases, who have restored other old homes in Kenwood and Hyde Park, bought it in 2008, paying the heirs of its longtime owner $900,000, according to the recorder. Their restoration involved “95 percent of every inch of the house,” says their agent, Anthony Rouches. They removed, restored, and put back in place the clay tile roofs of both the house and the coach house; took down crown moldings and other wood trim and then had them refinished and reinstalled; and repaired decorative plaster ceilings. (The front of the house is somewhat prim, but take a look at the listing photos to see the handsomely restored interior.) The kitchen and baths are new, and the Aucunases installed radiant heat below some floors.

According to Rouches, the Aucunases have moved out of Chicago. I have not been able to reach the buyers for comment.

Price Points: The price is the highest paid in Hyde Park since 2009, and $25,000 more than the Aucunases got 363 days earlier for the landmark Magerstadt House, where they had been living until Rob and Jessica Solomon bought the place. Rob Solomon was coming to town from California to serve as the head of Groupon, but a year later, he’s out at that company and is returning to California. The Solomons have not yet put the Magerstadt house back on the market.